I hate to break it to you, but you have spinach in your teeth. No, not literal spinach, but I promise you it's just as embarrassing. I take it that by now, you've gotten yourself a kick-butt domain name, and you've put a ton of work into your website. You've probably even gone as far as to develop a comprehensive content strategy to reach more people by drawing them into your site with great tips, tricks, and relevant news.​

So why then, when you're communicating via email on behalf of your business, are you doing so with a Gmail, AOL, Outlook, or god forbid a Hotmail email account (businessname@ gmail.com)?

A major part of successfully branding your business online is making sure that you present the right image to customers, and well, to be quite honest, not using a personalized email address located at your own domain name (name@ businessname.com) comes off as kind of embarrassing and unprofessional. You instantly lose credibility and trust among your customers.

​If you own a domain name and have a website, you're in luck. Setting up a personalized email address is pretty simple! Below are a few tips and recommendations to get you started.

Get Gmail Without Being *at* Gmail
Perhaps the biggest excuse we hear when asking why a company doesn't have a personalized email address is that it's too hard to set up and maintaining it is difficult. The good news is that's not true at all. If you already have your own domain name, getting a personalized email is a simple, painless process. It doesn't even require any specialized knowledge.

In fact, if you're currently using either Gmail or Outlook and enjoy doing so, you still can! Both Office 365 and Google Apps provide tools to help you power a personalized email address with their very popular Gmail and Outlook services, with step-by-step comprehensive guides. Switching over would take less than an hour of your time and will make sure that you keep branding yourself as trustworthy, respectable, and reliable.

You Won't Spend Much
You don't need to worry that a personalized email address is going to break the bank. Most of the popular services, such as Office 365 or Google Apps, run from about $5 to $6 a month, and provide the kind of reliability your company needs. By choosing a personalized email service, you get more than a more professional looking email address, too; these kinds of mail services give you scalability, making sure that as your business grows, you don't have to suddenly switch services. The free services you're using now are really only built for personal use.

Don't Fret About the Change
If you're worried that getting a personalized email address will mean that you have to change the way you use email, don't be. As we mentioned above, the most popular email providers that you're probably already using, currently offer personalized solutions for just a few bucks a month. By opting for a personalized email through a popular provider, you won't notice a change in the way you're used to using email at all, and you may even enjoy some of the added functionality.

The truth is, there's no reason to not get a personalized email address today. It may not seem that important to you, but would you trust a services provider who had a generic email address? Branding yourself as a modern company means taking a few extra steps now and then. This is one of the easier ones -- so get out there, and get a personalized email address before you embarrass yourself!